


The Meaning of Innocence

by purplekitte



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Gen, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-22
Updated: 2007-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 08:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why is it called Innocence?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meaning of Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: D.Gray-man is not mine.

What is Innocence?

General Cross Marian was a sadistic, womanizing, alcoholic who spent more time running away from debt collectors than after Akuma and he had the best synchronization of anyone on the planet. What was there left in him that was innocent, in the traditional sense of the word? Cross knew everything there was to know about perversion and sin and darkness; he couldn't imagine anything left in him that was _innocent_.

Linali was a broken child; orphaned, torn from her family that remained, abused. She had to be tied down to stop her from trying to claw out people's eyes, including her own. What that was innocent was left, when she shouted curses she shouldn't have known at the Black Order and their stupidity and hypocrisy. When she struggled to break her bonds and kill the doctors so hard she broke her own arm, what innocence was left?

Lavi was a lie. Everything about him was just a happy-go-lucky construct. His true self wasn't cruel or evil, he wasn't anything. He was a Bookman. How did he wield the hammer of an Exorcist? He was an impartial observer of history, who knew all the worst and best aspects of human nature and had no preference. What innocence was there?

Kanda had seen death and had seen what had driven him to seek vengeance. He'd seen everything since with no reaction, no care or compassion for his fellow human beings. He could hardly be said to be human anymore, as much an emotionless killing machine as an Akuma. If Kanda had ever had any faith in or care for human nature, it was long gone and where in his soul did innocence remain?

Allen was orphaned, abused, cursed. He lived to be a martyr and wallowed in his own pain and everyone else's. He had lived at the lowest point a person could go to many times, in many different ways, and the depravity of the world could only be something he'd already seen before. Allen had wanted to die many times before, but his Innocence had always saved him. Allen had no innocence left, but everyone who met him felt not a memory of their lost innocence, but a flicker of the ambrosia of experience: hope.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [For Want of Innocence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061286) by [liketolaugh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh)




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